Lankan elephants trample cricket pitch

KANPUR: Elephants trampled the cricket pitch of Hambantota stadium in Sri Lanka. The third one-day international match between Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka is to take place there on Thursday. It was surely an unusual occurrence which caused the organisers to pep up their action plan for the ensuing one-dayer. The huge creature might have mistaken the playing spot as a football ground. That was why these unmanageable giants created a peculiar scene.

Built in the year 2009 this major cricket stadium used to contain as many as 35 thousand spectators happily. But the drawback was that this stadium existed not far from the haven of the elephants. It was said to be too close to finding the horde of the elephants around the stadium. If the figure was not always in three dozens, as many as 25 elephants were most often found to be roaming easily in close proximity to the stadium as it was reported.

Being in the far-off areas this stadium embraces the straightforward access of the huge animals. This was the reason behind holding of lesser numbers of international matches on this stadium ground. Out of total five one-day international matches, the third match is to be played there. But it was quite out of the ordinary why did elephants attempt to spoil the pitch prior to the match? Were they shifting their interest from football to the gentleman’ game of cricket? Were they registering their protest against animals’ cruelty? Or, was it a direct protestation over their operation in the circus?

Whatever the cause may be, the elephants exercised what they should not carry out crudely. After all, an international match is to be organised at this not-so-old cricket stadium. It could not be denied that this arena fell into precincts of the Goliaths. They proved that their permission was highly essential for the organisers to undertake the event.